1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrodialysis apparatus and an electrodialysis method using the same. More particularly, the present invention relates to an electrodialysis apparatus that improves electrodialysis efficiency, and an electrodialysis method using the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
A polymerase chain reaction (“PCR”) is generally an artificial gene amplification method. In brief, single deoxyribonucleic acid (“DNA”) strands, which are obtained by consecutively separating DNA double helixes, are heated and cooled using a heat-stable DNA polymerase, so that the single DNA strands can be used as templates for forming new double helixes. More specifically, double-stranded DNA is heated so as to be separated into single DNA strands. Primers, which are short pieces of DNA, are added to the single DNA strands and cooled, so that the primers combine with the single DNA strands. A DNA polymerase is added to the single DNA strands with the primers, and the DNA polymerase initiates DNA replication from the primers. Repeating this cycle more than several tens of times allows DNA to be replicated to more than several billions of DNA within a short period of time.
In general, a bodily fluid in a human body-related PCR becomes a PCR sample. However, a PCR inhibitor existing within the bodily fluid reduces PCR efficiency to a great extent. Salt and red blood cells (“RBCs”) are representative examples of such a PCR inhibitor. For instance, exemplary materials having salt include sodium chloride (NaCl) and sodium sulphate (Na2SO4). Blood or urine, which is a PCR sample, has a high content of salt or RBCs.
When DNA of bacteria, which causes septicemia, is to be amplified or detected from blood of a patient associated with septicemia, it is usually necessary to separate this target bacterial DNA from the blood sample in order to effectively amplify or detect the target bacterial DNA. That is, a PCR inhibitor needs to be removed from the blood sample.
Direct use of the non-diluted whole blood as a PCR sample is limited because the non-diluted whole blood contains a substantial amount of PCR inhibitors. Generally, PCR efficiency decreases when about 2% of blood is contained within the total reaction solution.
One approach to overcome this limitation is a method of selectively destroying RBCs. For instance, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 4,407,942 issued to H. C. Birnboim on Oct. 4, 1983, entitled “Fluorescent Detection of DNA Damage” teaches a method of selectively destroying RBCs using ammonium chloride. However, this conventional method of removing PCR inhibitors from a sample except for target DNA may be very complex and take a long time. Also, the sample is likely to be contaminated while separating the target DNA from the sample.